Petar Janjic Has Access to Voter Roll, Godjevac Claims

Ana Godjevac, a member of the Committee for the Review of the Voter Roll representing the Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP), said on September 4 that Petar Janjic, secretary general of the Serbian government, has access to the Unified Voter Roll and to citizens’ personal data. She made the claim seven weeks before the early parliamentary election, scheduled for October 25, at a moment when the review of the voter roll is one of the central topics of the campaign. N1 was first to report it, at 12:47 p.m., and Danas and Serbian News Media carried the story the same day.

The Committee for the Review of the Voter Roll was set up to verify the accuracy of the data ahead of the election, and Godjevac says the files available to the Committee show that Janjic, an official who is not a member of that body and, in her words, has no legal basis to view the data, also has access to the roll. Janjic has served as secretary general in the government of Prime Minister Djuro Macut since April 16, 2025.

According to information from the files we have access to, Janjic can view the Unified Voter Roll. Committee members from the Party of Freedom and Justice have received no answer, either on why or on what basis.

Godjevac said, adding the question of whether that access is used to print voter lists ahead of the election or for some other purpose.

The Committee asked whether such access complies with the law, and the question was answered by the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection. According to Godjevac, the institution’s answer left no room for doubt.

Access to voter data by persons who have no legal authorization for it is not allowed.

the Commissioner said, without clarifying whether, or from whom, an explanation of Janjic’s access had so far been requested.

The same day, Godjevac accused Minister Snezana Paunovic of obstructing work on the voter roll review and, in her words, of pushing for an ethnic cleansing of the roll of voters. Paunovic, she says, already has full insight into the roll, so she knows exactly how many inconsistencies and anomalies it contains, as well as who is granted access to it.

The voter roll is not a database of guaranteed votes for the Serbian Progressive Party.

Godjevac said, alluding to how she claims Janjic and Paunovic are treating the roll ahead of the election.

Godjevac frames the aim of the two officials more broadly, tying it to Ana Brnabic and what she calls an entire team working to obstruct the review. That team, in her assessment, is working to keep every irregularity in the voter roll intact, including so-called phantom voters, people registered at addresses where they do not live or who do not exist at all. The Party of Freedom and Justice has said it will not allow what it calls the regime’s abuse of citizens’ data, and that it will keep informing the public of every misuse of the voter roll it links to the Serbian Progressive Party.

The Serbian government, secretary general Janjic and Minister Paunovic had not commented on Godjevac’s claims as of publication. That leaves open exactly the question the Committee for the Review of the Voter Roll says it raised before this statement: who gave Janjic access to the Unified Voter Roll, on what legal basis, and whether anyone from the government or from the authorities the Commissioner addressed will answer it.

The question carries weight because of the calendar. Less than two months remain until the early parliamentary election on October 25, and the accuracy and protection of the voter roll are a precondition without which the result is hard to defend before the public, regardless of who ultimately wins.